Rhinocrisy

This was linked off Busy, Busy, Busy, but somehow I missed it the first three times I read it.

For a long time, I’ve been struggling to understand something, which is this:

Since sometime in late 1999, the “left” in this country has been in high gear. When I say “left”, I mean people who are unambiguously left of center - that is, not Democrats, but Marxists, anarchists, Maoists, “progressive” liberals of the Green Party brand, Christian pacifists, and so on. Traditional rabble-rousers. After Seattle, these people (myself included) were suddenly brimming with power and energy, ready to go charging pell-mell at whatever demons they saw. And when they invariably bounced off, as if they had run into a stone wall, they were non-plussed. They picked themselves up and charged off again in another direction. And they had their small victories, as well, no doubt.

This didn’t really change after September 11. There was a brief hiccup, a pause while everyone sighed in shock and confusion. But then all the freaks gathered themselves again, and they were off. Economic globalization took a backseat, but a vigorous anti-war movement took its place. The bombing of Afghanistan was vigorously opposed, along with the Patriot Act, arbitrary detentions and the general air of jingoism. This energy continued - even escalated - through the period when the Bush administration was pushing to invade Iraq. Here it had the added energy of traditional liberals, who for the first time seemed to be willing to come out and do things that only the leftist freaks had been willing to do before (i.e. dress up funny and dance in the street with puppets).

Then the U.S. actually invaded Iraq, and everything stopped.

And it’s still pretty much stopped.

And I still haven’t figured out why. No one seems to have lost their conviction. No one seems to have lost their goals. But nothing happens. Is it futility? Do we (I) feel that whatever efforts we put in are doomed to fail, just like the gargantuan forces mobilized to pre-empt the invasion of Iraq failed? I think I’m suffering from ideological fatigue. Not that I have changed in any great measure. But my disclarity, my lack of vision for the long and difficult journey required to fulfill my goals, has come into focus. It’s been clarified by the events of the past few years. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. None of us do. We’ve been running on steam, hoping our relentless energy would be enough to propel us where we wanted to go.

I know I’m a relentless cynic, but I think I’m actually a false kind of cynic. I’m a fake, because really, way down deep inside, I have hope. I have tremendous hope and optimism for what we’re capable of doing with ourselves. And I think a lot of leftist freaks have that same hope. That’s the bit of fire that provides the engine for all of that steam. I don’t think that’s going to go away.

But that’s all I’m left with: we’re collectively sitting here, smoking a cigarette, saying to ourselves, “Well, shit. What should we do now?” I’ve got nothing else.

Perhaps I’m feeling susceptible, but I think this is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me:

three cats were in a pile asleep at the end of my stree[t] this morning. i thought of you.

Leaders of the Washington Apple Council today circulated a press release protesting persistent references to brutal military and intelligence officers as “bad apples.”

“Washington apple growers take pride in their quality control,” reads the 2-page press release. “We recognize that a few apples are in imperfect condition when they arrive at the local market, due to factors beyond our control. But the public must understand that even the worst Washington apple will never strike consumers with phone books, closed fists, nor open palms. These vitamin-rich, high-fiber fruits have never forced a human being to remain in a closed environment such as a sleeping bag while wound with an electrical cord. Nor do they force our valued customers to lie across folding chairs while an interrogator beats the soles of their feet with a police baton. These crisp, delicious snacks will not hit consumers on the back and buttocks with batons while they are in painful stress positions.”

The release states that carefully selected USDA-approved Washington apples, along with a healthy and balanced diet, provide valuable antioxidants, which can help some consumers maintain healthy sleep patterns. This contradicts public accusations that the fruit had caused sleep deprivation and randomly switched prisoners’ lights on and off throughout the day.

The trade association goes on to describe many other actions previously blamed on “bad apples” that the trade organization insists are actually the work of other creatures, which are more often available in supermarket parking lots than in the produce aisle.

For example, the Washington post has recently compared apples to mortgages, brutal police officers, and Enron energy traders. The paper has repeatedly been forced to eat humble pie baked with too little cinnamon as further fact-finding reveals that high-ranking officials, not bad apples, are responsible.

Reached for comment, Jim Allen, president of the New York Apple Association said, “I’m glad the Washington association took the lead on this. Our 150-year tradition growing apples for table, juice, and vinegar is threatened by the U.S. military’s insistence that our fruit are responsible for anything worse than a bit of gas and the occasional e. coli poisoning.”

While the compact and convenient snacks can apparently inhibit cancer cell proliferation, decrease lipid oxidation, and lower cholesterol, medical professionals call on diners to wash the attractively shaped fruit with soap and water if they wish to remove residues of soil, pesticide, and feces from apple-pickers forced to work long hours in fields without proper hand-washing facilities.

Perhaps all of y’all knew about this already, but apparently Congressman John Conyers has a blog. And he WRITES IT HIMSELF! No frickin’ Kerry-style “blog” written by pimple-faced interns here. We get it straight from the Congressman’s mouth. Now that’s a cool politician. (And here you thought I would never use the phrase “cool politician”.)

Anyway, I found this via A Tiny Revolution, who commented on the Baker-Carter commission on electoral reform. Conyers is rightly appalled that Baker (who played a prominent part in the 2000 Florida debacle and is extremely close to the President’s family) is considered a credible party to lead this commission. He talks about his discussions with the director of the commission (Dr. Robert Pastor) on his blog, and encourages us to e-mail the gent with our thoughts on electoral reform. If you’ve got a spare moment, you could tell him a thing or two.

(Via CT) Matt Taibi trashes Thomas Friedman’s new book (titled as above). Man, that guy writes so badly, it’s like he’s pieing himself. Kind of makes a boy feel unnecessary.

Bob Harris had this linked off his blog, and I think it’s the greatest thing ever. “Sha wa wa wa wa…” Hee hee hee.

The origin of the Nazi/evolutionist connection theory seems to be one Dr. Kent Hovind, a “creation scientist”, who has even earned the ire of other Christians over his idiocy. But Dr. Hovind isn’t all bad! He’s also the creator of an awesome theme park, Dinosaur Adventure Land, where you can learn about how dinosaurs and humans lived together in the Garden of Eden, how Noah’s flood formed the Grand Canyon, and other such goodness. Dinosaur Adventure Land is, of course, in Florida, where there is apparently some sort of rift in the fabric of normality these days.

Reminder: we DO live in the twenty-first century. But, like I said below… we’re perfectly capable of backsliding. Me, I’m looking forward to a nice Dark Age. Should be more entertaining than this blegging crap.

While I was looking around for pictures of the Scopes Monkey Trial, I came across this site, apparently put together by conservative Christians. I’m amazed that someone could be so startlingly wrong and still so utterly convinced. So amazed that I have to doubt. For example, check out this passage:

You may be interested, since the popular understanding of the Scopes trial is an illusion, what the reality is?

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED?

1. William Jennings Bryan was opposed to evolutionism for several reasons, mostly because of what it had done in Germany under Hitler. He was opposed to the idea that natural selection based on violent competitive struggle, which had so recently influenced German intellectualism and led to atrocities against the Jews and against the world. He wanted to stop evolution, an unproved hypothesis, from being taught as true. He saw democracy as a workable form of government under a Christian belief system, but saw the teaching of evolution as a method of indoctrination into the doctrine of materialism, which is anti-Christian.

In case you don’t know, the Scopes trial was in 1925. Ayep.

I am mystified. Is there a specific faculty devoted to knowing that you’re ignorant that these site editors lack? That’s all I can come up with. Either that, or this site was created by Tom Lehrer.

A month ago, it looked like the Chinese National Overseas Oil Company, CNOOC, was going to buy Unocal. But people who have been around the block knew that the U.S. would never let a foreign company buy such a strategic asset. I asked around, “how do they do it?” That is, what invisible fist would they come up with to out-roshambo the invisible hand of an open auction? It didn’t make any sense.

But sure enough, a couple weeks ago, the news came down from the great green flatlands of the Hacienda Industrial Park in San Ramon, California, home of ChevronTexaco: All your Unocal are belong to us.

Whaaa? Why did ChevTex agree to spend a couple billion extra bucks outbidding the Chinese? Shareholders reacted badly, costing the company about $8 billion in market capitalization. (Market cap is the market price of the company, should you feel the urge to max out your gold card.)

(Here’s the math: Up to the April 4 announcement, the stock had been tracking the industry but with that money-wasting decision, the stock started its 11.9% drop in just over 2 weeks. In that period the industry as a whole lost only 7% of its value. With 2.1 billion shares outstanding, that 3.9% fall means about an $8 billion extra loss of equity. The company would have lost money either way over this period, as dropping oil prices mean that speculators are getting temporarily out of the market. But if the company had fallen in sync with the rest of the industry, it would have lost only $14 billion in equity, instead of the $22 billion it lost.)

But if you are among the legions of rhinocrites who hold ChevronTexaco stock, you have nothing to fear but Phil himself. For fume-huffers in Congress have found a way to pay back not just the patriots at ChevronTexaco, but the whole network of America-loving oil giants: an $8 billion tax cut. Now I have no idea whether this is intended as some sort of payback or not, but if so, it’s pretty heavyhanded.

I mean, usually, if a policy is opposed to the Bush Administration, it’s a good bet to support it first and ask questions later. But incredibly, this proposal attacks the Bush Administration for being too friendly to renewable energy.

The House legislation, approved last week by the Ways and Means Committee, is at odds with the Bush administration’s approach. The president’s proposed budget calls for $6.7 billion in tax breaks for energy, with 72 percent going toward renewable sources of energy and energy efficiency, compared with about 6 percent in the House plan…

House Republicans stood by the measure, which provides the $8 billion in tax savings over a 10-year period. It was approved by the committee in a 26 to 11 vote that was generally along party lines but with five Democrats supporting the legislation and one Republican voting against it.

The legislation was pushed by Bill Thomas, whose district includes the Kern County oilfields that produce more oil than the entire state of Oklahoma. The biggest oil producer in Kern County is also the company that first struck oil in the region, the same company that has run the county for a century. ChevronTexaco.

(And in case the feds don’t help enough, the company is also asking impoverished Bay Area counties for a $44 million property tax rollback. Of that reduction, the S.F. Chronicle reports, Chevron is seeking the biggest reduction, $21 million.)